Tag: lgbtq+

I am a bisexual woman engaged to a woman. A wonderful woman who has made me happier than I’ve ever been before. There is that saying that, someday, someone will walk into your life and make you realize why it never worked out with anyone else. This is what I have, and it’s phenomenal. I feel like I’m the luckiest person alive! But of course, all my exes are men, and my fiancée is a woman. So the question always comes:

Warning: This review may contain small spoilers!

Categories: Lesbian, Queer, Women, Fantasy, YA

I have to admit, I’ve never read queer fantasy before. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but Malinda Lo’s Huntress sure didn’t disappoint!

The basic story is this: The Kingdom is in trouble. Weather patterns have changed, and crops are failing. Food is scarce, people are starving, and things aren’t looking good. Our hero, Kaede, is fruitlessly studying at a magical school, realizing she has little skill. (Think of a Squib trying to study at Hogwarts.) Our other hero, Taisin, is super magical. They go on a quest together to save The Kingdom.

The story is told in third person, but takes on varying perspectives, sometimes changing very quickly. There were a couple spots where that got a little confusing, but otherwise, I prefer third person narratives, so I enjoyed the narration. (Some people on Goodreads were really not okay with it.) Continue reading “Book Review: Huntress”→

Despite having recognized my queer identity at a very young age, I haven’t been able to attend many pride parades. Until very recently, I had only been to two parades, both of which were in Edmonton.

Thankfully, I added a new pride celebration to my list back in June. The Lethbridge Pride Parade was located on a downtown street, ending at Galt Gardens, a local hangout spot nestled between the Southern Alberta Art Gallery and a popular mall. Onlookers lined the street for a few blocks, clustered together on the sidewalk and sitting in the back of their cars to escape the muggy heat of the day.

Onlookers wait for the parade to reach them.

The whole of downtown Lethbridge was bursting with rainbows. A variety of local boutiques participated in a last minute window display competition, and the pride flag flew outside of City Hall. Rainbow crosswalks were painted throughout the downtown core, and are still in place almost two months later. It seemed that Lethbridge Pride Fest did a great job developing initiatives for local businesses and government to engage in.

It was also nice to see that the parade took place on such a central road in the downtown core, although my friend and I almost immediately noticed that the street wasn’t blocked off. Participants in the parade were forced to walk or drive on only one side of the street, as cars whizzed on by beside them. Continue reading “#YQL – Taking Pride”→

Normally, on a Friday, we would bring you a Sex & Dating themed post. We’re not doing that today because, to be frank, we don’t have one.

When Kate and I first talked about starting this website, we were excited about the idea of featuring lots of stories from lots of different people. We wanted our readers to be able to dive vicariously into other people’s lives; to learn a bit about people they might not otherwise meet, and to learn a bit about themselves in the process.

Representation is important to us. We really want to showcase people from across the queer spectrum. We want gay writers, bisexual writers, asexual writers, trans writers. We want to hear from queer people of colour, queer people with disabilities, queer people of all ages. We’d also love to hear from non-queer people about the relationships they have with the queer people in their lives.

We need your help with this.

Everybody’s got a story to tell. We want to hear yours. Even if you’re not a writer, we can work with you to put your lived experience into words. If you’re not comfortable putting your name and face on your story, we’ll happily publish it anonymously.

We need more colours on our rainbow canvas. Please think about adding yours. It’s the only way we can paint the whole picture.

I’ve been a member of my church for about five years. I started going shortly after I first moved into the neighborhood. I’ve wanted a church to call home for a very long time, but as a youth did not want one that prescribed a belief system I could not get behind. Mostly, I’m talking about Christianity.

When I was in high school, those were still the days before the cross-Canada legalization of same-sex marriage. I was starting to explore organized religion after my studies in individual spiritual systems left me feeling unfulfilled, and an unidentified nagging pushed me onward. I decided to attend a local United Church and loved it. The friendliness, the singing, the shaking hands. It wasn’t overly preachy. I couldn’t wait to dive all the way in.

I had many chats with the church’s youth pastor and eventually the subject of confirmation classes came up. I only had to clear up one thing.

Not to spoil it; it’s super subtle. While on temporary leave on a star base, Sulu is able to meet up with whom we are led to assume is his partner and his daughter. His partner is a man. The only other shot we get is his partner appearing next to him at a party later on.

And so, everyone has been freaking out that Sulu is gay.

George Takei has stated that he is disappointed that the character he played on The Original Series has been changed so fundamentally. He agrees that it’s about time for an LGBT hero to show up in the Trek universe on screen, but feels that a new character should have been developed instead of changing one that Gene Roddenberry created as a heterosexual. He says that the interracial kiss that Star Trek aired in 1968 was about as far as they could push the envelope at the time, so excluding LGBT characters was “not some oversight by [Gene Roddenberry]; it was a conscious decision with which he grappled.”

Simon Pegg has respectfully disagreed. He claimed that in introducing a new character as gay, the character “would have been primarily defined by their sexuality, seen as the ‘gay character’, rather than simply for who they are, and isn’t that tokenism?” He argues that Roddenberry would have made Sulu gay himself, and “[i]f he could have explored Sulu’s sexuality with George, he no doubt would have.”

Or, Why I’ve Finally Decided to Change My Last Name

Recently I figured out, with a little effort, how to change my name on Facebook. It’s a move I don’t make lightly. My mother comes from a family of only two daughters. They both made conscious decisions to pass on the family name. My father was easy-going about it, so Mom not only kept her maiden name, but passed it on to my brother and me.

Talk of marriage has come up in relationships for me before, and it never got any further than talk. But the conversations I did have usually got around to my last name, eventually. I was always adamant that I would keep my last name. Partly to keep the name alive, partly for feminism, and partly because I thought it would be really weird to take on a new name. I balked at this expectation that I would just absorb into my husband’s family. If it wasn’t an established cultural expectation – requirement, even, for some men – then I would probably have been more open minded about it.

Like I am now, with my wife. With two women, there is no assumption about last names. There were questions, of course, but most started with the supposition that we were not changing. “So you’ll be keeping your names, or will one of you change it?” We were already bucking tradition by marrying women. Continue reading “Mrs. Mo”→

I recently got back from vacationing with my wife. Among our many adventures in Nova Scotia, we stayed at the inn where she proposed to me, as is usual with our trips out east. The little inn shall remain unnamed, but they offer a small glass-door cupboard of books for guests to borrow, with a request to return for others to enjoy.

There were three or four shelves in a cupboard about two feet wide, so there weren’t a whole lot of books. It’s quite an eclectic mix, I must say. There were a few titles by L. Ron Hubbard, and several books in other languages. There was a 2006 – 2007 copy of Sunday Missal: Living with Christ and a small Lizzie McGuire chapter book.

But this immediately caught my eye: The New Illustrated Medical Encyclopedia For Home Use.

This beauty had four volumes, and looked old. I thought for sure it would be an entertaining read.

I brought it back to our room and delved in. It was published in 1959, back when having a medical encyclopedia for home use was a good idea and wouldn’t lead to chronic hypochondria.

Revolutionary, I know. But for me, it’s fairly unusual these days. As much as I love to use my words, and as much as my debate team history would imply I love arguing, I’ve never been good at comment wars. Maybe it’s something about the unending nature of arguing on the internet – the constant “ping” to let you know it’s still happening, and may continue in perpetuity. Or maybe it’s the stories from this election cycle of women being harassed for their political opinions on Twitter. Whatever the reason, when I start replying to a “hot topic,” I usually stop myself and backspace the hell out.

So when I found myself engaging in this particular debate, I surprised myself – especially given that the issue was one I’d never considered one of my “pet” topics.

The discourse centered around the LGBTQIA acronym, and whether it should be expanded. The discussion had been started by some straight allies who were genuinely concerned that they were using it incorrectly, that they hadn’t added enough letters, and that they’d be called out on it. Their concern was genuine, and palpable. They had the best of intentions, and were debating with one another what the current consensus might be among the gay community – and whether they were being bad allies if they weren’t sure what all the letters stood for.

Then, someone (who happened to be a straight man) popped into the conversation and said “Hey! I just heard about this great new version of the acronym! QUILTBAG! Isn’t it amazing! I like it a lot because the ‘quilt’ image evokes things like the AIDS quilt, and also it’s easy to remember. I think we should all start using it!” Continue reading “A is for Acronym”→

Pride (or Gay Christmas, as some call it) is a magical day. The city is cloaked in vibrant colours, and it pulses with unabashed joy from dawn to well after dusk. There is no other day of the year when I feel so completely embraced by everyone around me.

There’s usually a moment or two throughout the day when I’m struck by the fact that everything will go back to “normal” tomorrow. At these times, I wish everyday could be just like Pride – tens of thousands of smiling queers and allies strutting around downtown, radiating love at friends and strangers alike. Of course, Gay Christmas comes but once a year. But I’m confident that the feeling I had when I finally dragged my gay ass home last night (a.k.a. this morning) won’t be wearing off anytime soon. Continue reading “#YEG – Pride and Joy”→